The remarkable scientific study used the saliva from living members of the tribe.
Wikimedia Commonsbased on the DNA of eight living members of the Ohlone Tribe could result in federal recognition for the first residents of the Bay Area.
Before the Spanish colonized California about 250 years ago, it's thought that up to 30,000 Indigenous Ohlone lived across the land. By the 1920s, there were fewer than 100 remaining. In 1925, a UC BerkeleyThe genocidal history of the Spanish, and later European, colonization of what is now California is still being reckoned with today.
But an unlikely DNA link, reported in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on March 21, may lead to a big step toward legitimacy and recognition for the Ohlone people. The tribe currently has about 500 members living in California. Since the 1980s, the tribe has been fighting to prove their historic presence in the Bay Area through genealogy and analysis of death and marriage records from three Bay Area missions.
Six years ago, archaeologists at a construction site in Fremont found two ancient Indigenous villages. One was thought to be occupied as far back as 490 B.C.E., the other founded around 1345 C.E. DNA there, taken from the skeletal remains of 12 individuals, identified the Ohlone's genetic signature, and the new study has linked that DNA to eight living members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe.
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